For those keeping track, it's been over 20 years since The Matrix entered our lives and forever changed the way people make movies and think about life.
And just when you may have thought The Matrix trilogy was done/a thing of the past, co-creator Lana Wachowski decided to come back and say "hold my red pill."
For a quick refresher (or if you never saw it), Neo and Trinity died at the end of The Matrix Revolutions (the third, and until now, last Matrix film).
Trinity is fatally wounded (like, impaled to all heck by a bunch of rebar) when she and Neo crash while entering Machine City. She dies in their ship.
Later, Neo is plugged into the Matrix by the machines who then surge his body with energy, causing him to basically explode and finally "kill" Agent Smith. And, as we know from experience, if you die in the Matrix, you die IRL as well.
The last time we see Neo, his dead body is ceremoniously carried away by the machines.
So, when the news broke (back in 2019!) that a fourth Matrix film was happening — with Keanu Reeves AND Carrie-Anne Moss returning to their iconic roles, fans were like, Wait, whaaaaat?
@IGN But... but they died..
@IGN Didn't they both... Erm... Die?
They're gonna totally bank on no one remembering or caring that Carrie-Anne Moss died in Matrix 3. First line is "none of that counted, Mister Anderson"
Now, I'm not going to reveal any spoilers. You're gonna just have to wait and see the movie to see HOW Neo and Trinity are still alive.
But I can tell you that, when talking about why she returned to tell another chapter of The Matrix that included Neo and Trinity, Lana Wachowski really had a beautiful and heartbreaking reason.
In a release from the studio, Wachowski explained, "After we [her and Lilly] finished Sense8, which was a peak experience, we felt like we were done. Lilly didn’t want to keep making films either, and we decided that would be the close of it for now."
"Then our parents got sick and my wife and I came back to Chicago and moved in with them and we took care of them for the last few months of their lives. One night, I woke up, and I was in a lot of pain, and in the grief that I was experiencing with my parents dying, my brain wanted to imagine a story that would be soothing."
"And so, these two characters that were dead, my brain, one night, just resurrected them and brought them to life — Neo and Trinity. And I immediately responded to this hook of an idea that I woke up with, and I went downstairs and I just started writing it."
She continued, "My art all comes from this emotional place. I think about things intellectually, but it’s all led by this emotion. This desire to say something about my heart to other people’s hearts."
The Matrix Resurrections opens in theaters on Dec. 22, 2021 and will also be available on HBO Max for 31 days from theatrical release. And you can watch the most recent trailer here:
